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| 1080p HD Wii | |||||
| Question | |||||
| SUBJ: 1080P HD Capable Wii using existing GC based hardware?
Dear Hank, How likely or feasible would it be for Nintendo to introduce a low-cost 1080p HD version of Wii using the existing GC based hardware. Would a simple upscaling chip suffice as a solution or would it have to be more complicated than that? Another HD solution all together? Thanks, Julio | |||||
| Answer | |||||
| Upconversion: Adding a 1080p upconversion chip to the Wii would give a very minor visual improvement. The best possible upconversion comes from super resolution technology that could significantly improve edge quality. But super resolution upconversion requires powerful hardware and may add a 50-100 millisecond delay to real-time graphics.
Native 1920x1080: A new graphics processor with 6x pixel fill rate, 6x frame buffer memory, and 6x frame buffer bandwidth would allow Wii games to be rendered at 1920x1080 resolution without losing frame rate performance. This might be technically possible at a low-cost in 2009 or 2010, but it's an unlikely upgrade from Nintendo. Much more likely upgrades are larger flash memory storage (for more downloads) and different color consoles. True Next Generation Graphics: Don't expect Wii games rendered natively in 1080p to look like Xbox 360 games. Screen resolution is just one of many factors. Texture resolutions, polygon counts, lighting techniques, and post-processing effects are some other major ingredients of graphics.  Date: 2008-06-06 | |||||
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